November 16, 2004

Capone May Have Slept Here, Too, Canadian Town Says

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Visitors to Moose Jaw can take tours of rough reproductions of reputed Al Capone haunts including a mock speakeasy.

Greg Huszar/Klixpix for The New York Times

A whiskey cellar is a part of the town's large network of tunnels.

MOOSE JAW, Saskatchewan, Nov. 10 - This Bible Belt prairie town won a small measure of fame in the 1981 film "Atlantic City" when Susan Sarandon told Burt Lancaster, "You'd marry anyone to get out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan."

But that was before Al Capone made a comeback as the symbol of the town's resurgence.

On the surface, Moose Jaw may not be the most exciting place in the world. The 33,500 inhabitants of "the Friendly City" attend church regularly and obsess about the performance of the Warriors of the Western Hockey League (very ugly this year, by the way). The winters here are breath-catchingly frigid on the best of days. The avenues are treeless and bordered by dour brick warehouses and seedy hotels.

But there was another side of Moose Jaw, it turns out, an underside that reveals a darker aspect of Canadian history, one rarely highlighted in a country that fancies itself an angel in an imperfect world.

The peccadilloes were largely hushed up until 1985, when a truck fell through a downtown street, revealing a tunnel that led into a vast underground network. Anthropologists and local historians concluded that the tunnels connected several hotels that were long rumored to have served as brothels and saloons during Prohibition.

An Alberta magazine began poking around, followed by a mayor's task force, and piece by piece an unsavory past emerged that the townspeople had a hard time squaring with their wholesome self-image.

While the good people of Moose Jaw were going to church a century ago, for example, some of the townspeople were exploiting and brutalizing illegal Chinese immigrants, forcing them - according to some reports - to hide in the tunnels, which were built to service underground steam boilers that heated the town.

During the Prohibition era, from 1919 to 1933, the police force fell into the well-greased palms of organized crime - reputedly controlled by Capone, who was said to run gambling dens and houses of prostitution up and down River Street, all connected by the tunnels.

Prohibition, of course, was an American idea, one that made little impression north of the border. Some of Canada's provinces experimented with controlling alcohol in the early 20th century, but liquor was legal throughout Canada during most of Prohibition. Yet, as a major railroad center that connected western Canada to Minneapolis and Chicago, Moose Jaw emerged as a trafficking hub for bootleg liquor and drugs.

"It was a revelation," said Maurice Richard Libby, a local musician and writer who is the co-author of a history of Moose Jaw.

"The Canadian self-image is that we have a bland history that is exemplified by the perception that the American West was violent and colorful, while in Canada it was peaceful and bland," he said. "Once the tunnel thing exploded, people went 'Wow!' and instead of calling Moose Jaw 'the Friendly City,' it became 'Little Chicago.' " Within a few years, the tunnels became the centerpiece of a marketing program aimed at reversing years of economic decline.

Now, rather than a skeleton in the closet, "Uncle Al" is more like a founding father. Stores sell Capone coffee mugs, fedoras and toy tommy guns. The coffee shop by the bus depot calls itself Big Al's Cafe, and one of the seediest motels in town renamed itself Capone's Hideaway. A mural above the slot machines at a new casino depicts Capone smoking a cigar while a waiter pours some whiskey into his coffee cup.

"Uncle Al is a big draw," said Mike Darling, the manager of Capone's Hideaway. "People are jumping on the bandwagon."

Actually, that is not entirely true. Descendants of the old establishment and some churchgoers found the phenomenon embarrassing. In local elections a few years ago, politicians debated how and whether to subsidize tourist businesses that use Capone as a marketing tool. The pro-Capone forces won the day.

The celebration of Moose Jaw's seedier side is highlighted by a rough reproduction of Capone's hideaway in part of the tunnel complex, managed by a private company. Tour guides show off a supposed replica of Capone's bedroom and an office with a pair of binoculars that were used to spy on the ladies who worked on the third floor of a nearby hotel. The spats, silk pajamas and custom-made bed were all bought at local antique and knickknack shops, and supervisors openly say their exhibit is simply "research tourism" that is not to be taken literally.

Capone's presence in Saskatchewan smuggling is documented by court documents in nearby Regina that show that the gangster Dutch Schultz sued him over a shipment of 60 cases of bad liquor. The suit was withdrawn after Capone refunded the money.

But evidence that Capone ever actually walked the streets of Moose Jaw is sketchy. The only documentary evidence was found in a dentist's appointment book that includes the name Al Brown, a known Capone alias - chosen, of course, because it is such a popular name.

Whoever Al Brown was, there are also persistent stories of Capone patronizing a local barber shop. A local paper once quoted a retired doctor who no longer lives in Moose Jaw as saying that he treated Capone for tonsillitis.

Many in Moose Jaw just smile and wink; others cringe over a possible misuse of history.

"I call tourism the snake oil of the new millennium," said Brian Swanson, a Moose Jaw city councilman who is skeptical that Capone ever actually set foot here. But Mr. Swanson refused to say what he really thought of the town's capitalizing on its bootlegging past.

"The last thing I need is to be the guy who kicks this thing," he said.